NATO poised to take command of Libya operation

A libyan rebel carries his boots after he was supplied with sneakers on a checkpoint on the frontline near Zwitina, the outskirts of the city of Ajdabiya, south of Benghazi, eastern Libya, Thursday, March 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — Fighter jets hit aircraft and a crossroads military base deep inside Libya on Thursday, and NATO appeared poised to assume command of the international operation that is working to thwart Moammar Gadhafi's forces by land, sea and air. A senior Pentagon official said the U.S. would likely continue flying combat missions.

France, meanwhile, set a timeframe on the international action at days or weeks — not months.

The possibility of a looming deadline raised pressure on rebel forces. So did the arms embargo, which keeps both Gadhafi and his outgunned opposition from getting more weapons. The rebels were so strapped Thursday that they handed out sneakers — and not guns — at one of their checkpoints.

"We are facing cannons, T-72 and T-92 tanks, so what do we need? We need anti-tank weapons, things like that," said Col. Ahmed Omar Bani, a military spokesman told reporters in Benghazi, the de facto rebel capital. "We are preparing our army now. Before there was no army, from now there is an idea to prepare a new army with new armaments and new morals."

The Gadhafi regime appeared equally hard-pressed, asking international forces to spare its broadcast and communications infrastructure.

"Communications, whether by phones or other uses, are civilian and for the good of the Libyan nation to help us provide information, knowledge and coordinate everyday life. If these civilian targets are hit, it will make life harder for millions of civilians around Libya," Moussa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, told reporters in Tripoli.

Representatives for the regime and rebels were expected to attend an African Union meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Friday, according to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who described it as a part of an effort to reach a cease-fire and political solution.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the international action would last days or possibly weeks, but not months. But he told RTL radio that in addition to protecting civilians, the mission "is also about putting Gadhafi's opponents, who are fighting for democracy and freedom, in a situation of taking back the advantage."

In Washington, Navy Adm. William Gortney told reporters Thursday that the U.S. role would predominantly be in support of allied partners, with refueling missions, surveillance, reconnaissance and other non-combat flights. But he also said he expects U.S. planes would continue flying some strike missions.

Libyan state television showed blackened and mangled bodies that it said were victims of airstrikes in Tripoli. Rebels have accused Gadhafi's forces of taking bodies from the morgue and pretending they are civilian casualties.

A U.S. intelligence report on Monday, the day after coalition missiles attacked Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound in the capitol, said that a senior Gadhafi aide was told to take bodies from a morgue and place them at the scene of the bomb damage, to be displayed for visiting journalists. A senior U.S. defense official revealed the contents of the intelligence report on condition of anonymity because it was classified secret.

The French strikes hit a base about 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of the Libyan coastline, as well as a Libyan combat plane that had just landed outside the strategic city of Misrata, France's military said.

In Tripoli, Libyan deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim said that the "military compound at Juffra" was among the targets hit. Juffra is one of at least two air bases deep in Libya's interior, on main routes that lead from neighboring countries in the Sahara region that have been suppliers of arms and fighters for the Gadhafi regime.

The town of Sabha, about 385 miles (620 kilometers) south of Tripoli, has another air base and international airport and is a major transit point for the ethnic Tuareg fighters from Mali and Niger who have fought for Gadhafi for the past two decades. Malian officials say hundreds of Tuareg men have left to fight in Libya against the recent uprising.

Abdel-Rahman Barkuli, a Libyan in exile originally from Sabha, said communications with his family there were abruptly cut on Wednesday night and heavy security is preventing residents from moving in or out.

He said residents in Sabha reported airstrikes before dawn: two targeted radars and one targeted a military camp. The airstrikes apparently bypassed a mountain facility that stores ammunition and heavy weaponry for the Gadhafi regime.

"Thank God they didn't bomb the mountain because it would be a disaster" for the civilians living nearby, he said.

Barkuli said members of two anti-Gadhafi tribes in the city were rounded up early in the protests that began Feb. 15. "No one knows anything about their whereabouts," he said.

U.N. human rights experts said hundreds of people have disappeared in Libya over the past few months, and said there were fears that those who vanished were taken to secret locations to be tortured or executed.

The disappeared were "mainly people who called for demonstrations and who opposed publicly the regime," one of the independent experts, Olivier de Frouville, told The Associated Press.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor, said he was "100 percent" certain that his investigation into attacks on Libyan protesters will lead to crimes against humanity charges against the Gadhafi regime.

Vice Adm. Rinaldo Veri, the commander of the NATO naval blockade, said the effort was "closing the main front door" to weapons and mercenaries for Gadhafi. He said NATO sailors were prepared to board any suspect ships that don't voluntarily submit to inspections.

"If they should find resistance, the use of force is necessary," he said, noting that the Security Council had mandated all means necessary to enforce the embargo.

The U.N. Security Council authorized the embargo and no-fly zone to protect Libyan civilians after Gadhafi launched attacks against anti-government protesters who wanted him to leave after 42 years in power. But rebel advances have foundered, and the two sides have been at stalemate in key cities such as Misrata and Ajdabiya, the gateway to the opposition's eastern stronghold.

Ajdabiya has been under siege for more than a week, with the rebels holding the city center but facing relentless shelling from government troops positioned on the outskirts.

Mohammed Ali, 56, who was among people fleeing Thursday, drove out with his family. "They've cut everything — the electricity, the water. It's getting worse and worse inside."